Plantfanatic

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

2006-06-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins I have Jack-O-Lanterns on my mind. It’s getting to be June and with the warmer weather comes the planting of pumpkins. Not only am I planting pumpkins, but I’m also planting gourds and squish as well. I have already planted my giant pumpkins outside; my goal this year is to grow a 900 pound pumpkin. When going for the giant pumpkin make sure that you plant them early and get the right seed. Dill’s Atlantic giant is the standard for giant pumpkin growing so it’s a good idea to get this variety. People that just get started growing pumpkins can grow a 500 pound pumpkin the first year. A good book about the sport of pumpkin growing is World Class Pumpkins II. If you need any help or advice with your pumpkin growing endeavors leave me a message!

Until Later,
Plantfanatic

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

2006-05-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Seedless Watermelons

2006-04-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Bee’s aren’t the only ones busy this time of year; it seems like there a million thing to do and only half the time to do them. I put out some cabbage, broccoli, and leaf lettuce this past week. My favorite variety of broccoli is Atlantis; it seems to grow quickly and has nice dense heads. I like my cabbage heads to weigh about 6-10 pounds for my road side stands. I now some people can grow 20-30 pound heads, but what are your going to do with all that cabbage?
I also planted my seedless watermelon today. If you have never grown seedless watermelon let me tell you, home grown seedless watermelon has it all beat. If you don’t know how to grow them they can be quite a challenge. The way we start our watermelon off is by planting them in our trays and then putting them in a dark hot room, around 90 degrees, and leaving them there for two days. You want to make sure that you trays are just moist otherwise they’ll rot in the trays. After you’ve left them in the dark room for a couple days take them to the greenhouse or into the sun and away they’ll grow.

Plantfanatic

Spring!!!

2006-03-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful week!!! Its spring and there’s a thousand things to do. On Monday we planted our onions, we planted around 5000. Hopefully a lot of people will want to buy onions this year. Also today was so sunny that I felt like I should get out and do something. So it might be a bit early, but I went ahead and took the straw off my Darselect strawberries (offered by Nourse Farms). What a job, but hopefully it will be worth it. If you have strawberries make sure when you take the straw off, that you cut the dead plant away. If you don’t you’ll strawberries will rot right at the tips, no fun at all. One more thing if you haven’t separated your perennials yet now is a great time.

More Later,
Plantfanatic

Onions

2006-03-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Today was a snowy, cloudy day, not the kind of day that you would want to plant onions on. Which is what I was planning on doing, but the ground was a little to wet so I think I’ll wait a few days. Some of my favorite varieties are Candy, Walla Walla Sweets, and red Burgermaster. You can find all of these varieties at Dixondale Farms, I’m not sure if they have a website, but there prices are very good especially if you buy in large quantities like we do. My tomato plants in the greenhouse are looking good, though it looks like I might have burnt them a little with fertilizer, either that or they have some kind of disease.

The Quest for An Earlier Tomato

2006-03-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

I planted my tomatoes recently hoping for an earlier crop this year. I don’t know about you, but it feels awful good to have beautiful tomatoes in the early summer. So I try to plant them as early as possible. I have also learned a few tricks. Such as when the tomatoes are about full size, but still green take a shovel and slice the roots about a foot from the base of the plant, this makes the plant think it’s going to die so it ripens the tomatoes up nice and fast. Also I don’t know if any of you have tried all the different little greenhouses that you can get to put over you tomatoes, such as Wall-O-Water or just plane milk jugs. These are nice to get them off to a great start. I’m sure there’s other ways to extend the tomato season, if you have any tips please leave me a comment.

Until next time,
Plantfanatic

2006-03-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

When I was a young gardener I remember when I thought that the more seeds you had in a small area the better, boy did I learn, when your sunflowers are shading out your tomatoes that’s not so good. I’m a big fan of planning
I have heard it said that “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” I don’t know if they plan to fail as much as they don’t know what there getting involved, they have not counted the cost. I know most of you out there our experienced gardeners yourselves, but I think everyone should have a garden plan. You can get twice the amount of produce out of the same space if you have a plan of where to plant what when. Confused? Let me give an example say that you have a space that you want to plant tomatoes in, well we all know that tomatoes are a warm weather crop that you plant later in the spring, so before you plant tomatoes why not plant an early crop of radishes, kohlrabi, or lettuce (probably better to do a leaf lettuce instead of a head lettuce). See you get two crops for the price of one plot of land.

Tomato Varieties

2006-02-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tomato Varieties

As the cold winds of February sweep down I am reminded anew of the wonderful days of spring and summer. Even though the cold winds are blowing I’m starting to see signs of spring. Little buds on the trees and the sprouts of Daffodils peaking out to meet the blue sky. I’m afraid though that they might be a little premature. We can always hope though for a warm rest of the winter. It’s about the time to start planting tomatoes in the greenhouse. Some of my favorite tomato varieties are:

Variety Characteristics

Mountain Fresh Medium to large fruit with a wonderful flavor

Sun Leaper Early medium size fruit with great vigor (You
Neighbors will be wondering how you always have
Tomatoes days before theirs).

Carolina Gold A wonderful yellow tomato with less acid than red

I hope you try some of these wonderful Tomato varieties,
Until Next Time,
Plantfanatic

Tired of Winter

2006-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

About this time of year it gets a little slow in the garden and with garden ideas swelling up inside, I have decide to start this garden log. I am an avid gardener, small truck patch grower, and a big pumpkin Lover.

It seems like about this time of year the seed companies must know that all of us gardeners are starting to get the craving for a little bit of the sunshine and some beautiful flowers. So they send all these beautiful catalogs out tempting us with snap dragons, stevia (a wonderful herb for those of you who haven’t grown it yet), and snow peas. When I open the mail box to that first catalog about the beginning of February it’s like Christmas all over again, I grab that catalog up and do my little beginning of the new growing season jig(you true green thumbs out there know what I mean), and away I go ready to start ordering. Though by the 15, I am not quit as excited.

Now is such a wonderful time to start planning your Garden for next year. What I like to do some snowy February night is to sit down by the fire with my seed catalog and a piece of paper and plan out this next years Garden. I like to start out by making a rough outline of my garden, then think back on those warm summer months and remember how last years garden went, I then can decide how much I want of the different kinds of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. After this is done I lay out a blue print of what the next years garden is supposed to look like, making sure that I have a good crop rotation(more latter).

BAD BARGAINS????
I know many of you gardeners out there love a bargain I do to, but one place you don’t want to go cheap is in your seed purchases. I don’t mean you have to go out and buy the ultra expensive kinds, but I am saying to throw last years seeds out, and the on clearance seed from last year at the garden center, no thank you. I would rather let the weeds grow than to start out cheap. Sorry, I know this hurts, throwing last years seed away is like throwing a friend away, I feel your pain, we can get threw this. So start from scrap and buy quality seeds from a reputable company, preferably one that been in business for a while.

Breathlessly Waiting For Spring,
Until Next Garden Craving,
Plantfanatic